“Darkness Falls” is the first work I have read by Leverone. He is a skilled writer, develops character and setting well and is capable of creating suspense and a sense of foreboding dread. I would even be interested in checking out more of his writing.

The reason I have not rated this novella with a higher star rating, despite all the praise I just offered, is its premise. Tyler Beckman has a tragic past and is returning to the town of his birth, Darkness Falls, the source of some of the single worst event of that life, the brutal murder of his entire family. Tyler is a once successful horror author, fallen from grace, now cursed with nagging writer’s block.

When he returns to town, living in a house where another maniac killed his own family, strange things happen, Tyler blacks out for hours at a time, yet all the while writing with fervor not present for years.

All of this leads to some good suspense and a reasonable pay-off, but it all just felt a bit familiar to me, without a unique twist to make this different enough from similar plots explored by other horror writers writing about fictional horror writers.

Not a bad novella, but Delirium certainly has more powerful and way more frightening ones to offer.